Original subtitles

(sighs)

(suspenseful music)

- Oh, (beep) I just cut myself.

I'm not tapping out.

It is time to make this shelter uber insulated.

Arctic winter is no joke.

(water splashing)

- You're my only companion.

- Holy (beep) I got a fire.

(beep)

- In Olón's coldest location ever, 10 participants fight to survive the Arctic.

- The Arctic is one of the most physically demanding places on Earth.

- I'm so freaking cold right now.

- Battling sub-zero temperatures.

- This climate's harsh, it's extreme, it's mean.

It's got teeth.

- Get caught out here and I'll wind out here in trouble.

- Vicious predators.

- Heard something big moving back there.

Me against the wolverine right now.

- And isolation.

- There's nothing to fill that void.

It's just you left alone with your thoughts.

- How long will they endure?

- Hose is on fire.

- I'm scared, but I don't wanna tap.

- This is the most unforgiving landscape I've ever seen.

- The last one standing wins.

- This environment will strip away everything and anything you thought you had.

(somber music)

- Last night my shelter lit on fire.

I caught some moss in a wall and I saw it happen

and I tried to put it out before it got too bad and I couldn't.

That was my nice closed-in fireplace.

There'd been no light before.

I knew it was a risk having the moss higher up without having it covered in clay,

but it froze up before I could get it all done.

Man, it went quick last night.

That whole wall was engulfed.

I had to just start ripping every part of it down.

My effort

is not meant to be doing this right now.

I don't really have time to (beep) around and feel sorry for myself.

My plan is I'm just gonna build this back pretty much

the way I had it, but we're just not gonna use moss.

- This reminds me of my grandpa.

He was a tough, tough son of a bitch.

And he always told me, he said, "Michelle, if somebody's

standing in front of you "and they're causing

you problems," he said, "you just keep swinging.

"When there's nobody left in front of you," he said, "then you can rest.

" That's kind of been my motto for life.

You know, you just keep swinging every day.

Oh, this is tough work, guys.

I cut down a couple of bigger trees with the hope

I can fill in the gaps that are gonna be left.

Hopefully, I can get clay and fill in all

those spots and I can avoid any future fires.

I knew that this would be hard.

I knew that it would be a test of my limits.

And I still can.

You gotta find that strength deep down inside ya.

Could've pulled it last night,

but I curled up in my sleeping bag and hung on, you know?

Having a rebuild set me back,

delaying everything and putting a real hitch in my plans.

There's still more work there to be done.

I just gotta chip away at things.

I'm having difficulties, having setbacks, having challenges,

but that's just kind of how my life works anyway.

You know, that's nothing new for me.

Nothing ever seems easy for me.

It always seems like I'm struggling just to get

ahead and get one foot in front of the other one.

Just keeps swinging.

Last night was crazy.

Woke up, I believe I heard a moose running around out here.

I thought long and hard about trying to get up and go out and take a shot,

but so noisy trying to get out of your sleeping

bag and get your clothes on and all that.

'Cause once it sees you, then that would be like, "Oh man, I blew up the spot.

" So today I'm gonna see where it went, kind of follow its tracks.

I need to get a moose because I feel like this

location provides me really only with rabbits.

Rabbits have so much protein on them and so little

fat that you can eat them, but not get enough energy.

Fat is what you need.

That's the stuff of life out here.

Moose has got a ton of delicious fat on it.

Oh yes.

Look at these fresh tracks.

Swapping up the mud.

I believe these are the ones I heard last night.

(dramatic music) This is great.

From the looks of the tracks, they follow this

weed edge down to this little mud bog thing here.

See over there, that's where I heard him.

Shelter's right over there.

Happy to see the moose so close.

Not every day you get the chance like this, be able to shoot a moose,

especially one when you really need it.

It's like really exciting.

I'm gonna go make a early warning system for moose.

So when I'm sitting over there half dazed off,

I might hear him coming first.

So I took some of these cans that I've found and put some trip strings around.

I wanted to put it here 'cause I actually

don't want it to bang across a lot of rocks.

I don't want it to actually scare the moose or startle it.

Just want it to flip over that one, clink,

and that'll be enough to alert me to get my bow ready.

Wish me luck.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

Check my mousetraps.

No moose.

Let's check the other one.

Come on, be a moose, be a moose.

Please, please, please.

Oh, it's set off.

Come on.

Yes!

Hello, beautiful.

Oh my gosh, I got a moose.

He's just frozen and squashed like crazy,

but I'm just so grateful for this little guy.

I feel strong.

I feel excited to be here still.

Overall, I feel good.

Brunch.

I feel pretty nourished.

I mean, I'm not hungry.

I've never gone to bed hungry.

I never wake up hungry.

Let me show you how to prepare a blueberry mouse muffin.

You take your mouse head

and you jam all of these blueberries in there

so that every bite literally is a blueberry

and you don't have to taste the mouse head like that.

Stay on.

And then after it goes down, we proceed with another good dose of blueberries.

Just for the aftertaste.

(upbeat music)

The mice are definitely all over this area, but they're just small,

and so I'd rather be working on bigger animals right now.

I feel like I'm actively gonna seek out the squirrel that lives near me.

My body needs more calories and energy

to be able to walk farther to seek other animals.

I hear 'em.

I actually hear 'em.

He's right here.

Whoa, buddy, whoa, buddy, whoa, buddy.

Whoa.

Oh, no.

Where are you, little guy?

I see him.

Hey, buddy.

There's so many branches in the way.

Oh, I got him.

I think I got him.

Sorry, buddy.

Oh, buddy.

Oh, no.

Oh.

I wanna bring it back to my camp, that's for sure.

I'm really grateful right now.

Really needed this.

Oh, (beep)

You gotta be kidding me.

I (beep) stabbed myself with my arrow.

I can feel blood dripping down my leg.

Oh, (beep)

I can't believe I just cut myself.

My arrow jammed into my leg, ripped my pants,

and I can feel blood dripping down my leg.

I gotta take a look.

Gosh, okay, here we go.

Oh, (beep)

Jeez, it's freaking deep.

Ah, that's (beep) bad.

I gotta tend to this.

Yeah, I'll deal with a tripod first

before I tend to a flesh wound.

It looks like it needs serious care.

Okay.

I'm just gonna

hold that on there.

Let me tie this thing.

I don't want blood all over this, though, but just so I can

get a fire going and then be able to be warm and do this.

Come on, striker.

Oh, man, my hands are...

Oh, thank you.

Bless you.

Okay.

(beep)

It's like a hole in my leg.

Literally, I don't know how deep it is.

And it's not deep enough.

(sniffing)

Ow.

I think it looks pretty clean.

It looks like blood, not dirt.

Need some butterfly bandages, quite freaking clearly.

I'm just making tons of mistakes.

Out here, you can't do that kind of stuff to yourself.

You gotta pace yourself, and at the same

time, you gotta just be on it with everything.

No mistakes, 'cause the next one will send me home.

Okay, kind of sad to report,

but this is how I'm walking right now.

Little limpy.

Hi, animals, wait for me.

I'm coming.

Like, what the hell, dude?

(ominous music)

(ominous music)

(birds chirping)

I shot right over him.

I haven't seen anything to hunt other than squirrel.

And I've only taken one squirrel the entire time I've been here.

So, I choose to focus on the more positive things rather than the negative things.

I can have a day without that frustration,

and hopefully have a day where I feel successful by completing my shelter.

We need to get a lot more insulation to at least bide us till the snow's come.

My thought was on insulating the shelter,

'cause I was gonna start harvesting

some of this mossy, duffy stuff, and start placing

it over the top of the spruce boughs on the shelter,

now that it's pretty much completely covered in spruce.

That should close up some of the gaps and give it some insulated properties.

Let's see how this works.

The best part about being out here is the freedom.

This journey represents a higher level of freedom,

a simpler life, a much more stress-free life.

In a lot of ways, it's way easier than life in the modern world.

All right, all right, all right!

Yeah, whew!

While there will always be a need for maintenance and upkeep,

with the exception of the door,

my shelter is essentially done.

Oh!

Yeah.

Heck, what am I gonna do now?

Eh, eh?

(dramatic music)

(wind blowing)

Interesting thing about this island,

the wind is blowing in a direction that's suitable to call moose.

And you can see when they cross that whole muddy peninsula,

so if they're coming, you'll know ahead of time.

I made a birchbark moose call.

The moose call just imitates a female that's ready to mate.

If you're a stupid, avid moose hunter,

then don't be too critical.

I'm no pro, but.

(moose calling)

All right, give that a few minutes now.

And head back.

(dramatic music)

Crows are going crazy, which sometimes they do when there's a bear walking around.

Oh, crap!

My early warning system.

I don't see anything over there, but I'm gonna be on my toes.

Oh my God.

Got a shot now, I just gotta take it.

(moose calling)

(dramatic music) Damn.

Estimated his distance, shot, and dropped it right between his legs.

Oh, man.

Such a downer.

I'm gonna think about that one for a long time.

Everything worked as planned.

The early warning system was loud.

If I would've had two shots, I would've gotten

the moose for sure, but you don't get two shots.

Not to mention, when I hurry, I only grabbed one

arrow, so even if I would've had time to reload,

which I may have, I did not have another arrow.

Now I don't get to see that moose again until the show airs.

That's pretty annoying.

(dramatic music)

(moose calling)

I was thinking last night, as I was working on the cabin into the dark,

that after this experience, depending on how long I stay,

hopefully it'll be, let's say, 94 days,

but I thought it would be very amusing to get made up.

I survived 94 days alone in the Arctic and all I got was this stupid T-shirt.

I think I'd rather have it say, "I surthrived," but I'm not sure.

I'm not sure that what I'm doing is surthriving.

Truth be told, I think I'm more surviving.

I think surthriving would involve food.

(laughing)

Yeah, food as first priority,

especially while I still have a little bit of energy left.

Feels like a good time to do the further ranging missions.

It's definitely the Arctic, not fooling around here.

It's why I put so much energy towards my shelter right away rather than food.

But now I am hungry as hell.

There's crowberries here.

I'd love to stop and pick them and have a little breakfast.

Crowberries are definitely changing.

The foliage is getting more orangey

and I feel like the berries are gonna be

drying up, so I'm trying to fill my gullet now.

Check it out, not a bad handful of crowberries.

All right, that feels like about all I can manage.

Maybe it's because my body actually really wants animal food.

I'm really hoping for red meat and large game.

I think that's the only real long-term sustainable strategy for being out here.

Oh my God.

Two shed moose, of course.

That's a very good sign.

Check out this path through the reeds out to the lake.

And then right here, a pile of fresh chewed alder branches.

If I could get a moose, it would turn everything around.

This is prime moose habitat.

I'm gonna keep looking along the shore and see what I can see.

(suspenseful music) She flew off.

And I don't know where it ended up.

I was getting close to my home base and heard this

flutter of wings and up in this little tree flew a grouse.

I crept around closer and I took the shot with a broadhead and I totally hit her.

You can see, went right through her, covered in feathers, covered in blood.

She flew off and now is dying in the woods somewhere and I need to find her.

But hard to find a very camouflaged wounded bird

in a landscape she is designed to blend in with.

Hope upon hope that I can find her and retrieve her

'cause that would be such a shame and such a waste.

And the hunger is definitely starting to get to me

'cause I am feeling a little desperate around the food situation.

Just shot my first spruce grouse.

The arrow went right through that entire bird.

Oh, it's so hard to be so close to having gotten a grouse.

Please, please, please let me find you.

There's so much habitat to cover.

She was white and dark gray.

I'm gonna go around the edges now

and then I'll go through the middle again.

I'm pretty physically tough and I don't give up easily but I'm working really hard.

I'm very active every single day.

I'm doing a lot that burns calories and the cumulative effect of that

is burning through all of my body's stored calories.

I just don't know how far a grouse can go wounded.

I know a bear can run 30 yards after it's been shot in the heart.

There she is.

Oh my God, thank God.

Oh, oh my God, I found her.

Oh, I want to save every piece of her.

She is so gorgeous.

Oh, so grateful.

I've been coming to this whole experience from such a good place,

from a place of just really wanting to live in deep connection with the land.

So I've been so conscious and so prayerful

and so communicative, but I've been starving.

So it is so gratifying now to feel,

to feel the reward.

Yep, I've got grouse feathers smeared in my tears.

Oh God.

Wow, what a freaking morning.

Fishing, fishing, fishing.

Let's do some catching today.

Not just fishing.

(beep)

(yells)

Getting wet, getting wet.

Getting wet was not part of my fishing plan.

Well, I'm here now, so I'm fishing.

Fishing is beginning to be a point of frustration.

It definitely suddenly dropped off.

It's partially because of the spawn.

Oftentimes when fish are spawning, they're not really interested in much else.

I've not seen a single fish swim by, around in the area.

No little fish, no nothing.

Still got berries to forage, squirrels to hunt.

In the last 16 days, I've had one fish, one squirrel, and a lot of berries.

I found a great big old berry hiding down there.

I think my body is getting to the point where berries alone may not be enough.

I'm kind of winded climbing up this simple hill.

I'm enjoying the experience.

But at what point is it not worth it?

Is the risk to my own body and future health

so great that I need to call it and go home?

What is that point?

Got long enough.

I'd say what's keeping me here at this point

is my fear from going home.

My fear to be back in that mundane world

of nine to fives, punching clocks,

of being stressed out over other people's problems.

Not so hard before you've been through it all.

You've tasted freedom.

But definitely hard to go back into the cage

after you've flown free for a long time.

- Ooh, it's windy and cold.

So I'm just gonna hang out in here and eat my amazing grousiness.

Yes, look at that.

That, my friends, is a good-sized piece of meat.

Wow.

And here are heart.

This is all chunks of breast meat.

This is liver.

And then there is the leg.

Hooray!

May this motivate me to hunt better so I can eat like this every day.

Oh my goodness.

Oh, that is so satisfying.

This was the tipping point.

And now I'll be bringing in the game, and maybe now the grouse are showing up.

Now that I am fully fortified with delicious meat

in my belly, I wanna be out exploring that new area

with my bow, and time is a-wastin'.

(dramatic music) Good morning.

Welcome to day 19.

(yawns)

It is a cold morning.

And then I think I'm going on a roam.

I'll go and see what lies past the lake.

With fishing not producing anything

and only so much time left that I could forage berries, it's becoming fairly evident

I am going to have to turn to active hunting.

Packing a good load today, heading up the hill again.

And really need to try to get a better understanding of my area.

Nothing I'm doing is working.

I need to find some way to procure something to eat.

Packing this weight around is killing me.

I'm exhausted.

I need to take a break from this.

(dramatic music)

I geared up for a long run to go check out the furthest

reaches of my area, and I don't have the energy for it.

I'm basically in a battle of attrition and a starvation game.

And I don't know if it's worth putting myself at risk.

(phone beeps) You sure, Ray?

Yeah.

(phone beeps) This is Ray.

I am officially tapping out.

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

I've done all I can here.

I've enjoyed this experience.

And I want to remember it as something to be enjoyed.

Making that call was very difficult.

You feel pressured to go out, having given every last ounce.

But it was logistical.

I couldn't find enough to eat.

And the prospect of finding anything more than what I'm getting seemed very unlikely.

So I put my body at significant risk.

I'm feeling sad about leaving.

Like I've let my wife down, myself down.

I expected to be out here quite a bit longer.

And I'm feeling anxiety about going back.

This journey showed me true freedom.

That gave me a better understanding of the modern world.

It's just like anything else.

It's what you make of it.

When you're pretty hungry, time goes really slowly.

So you'd really be happy to catch a fish, but it takes you all day.

And if you don't get anything, it's just more fun to snare and hunt

than to stand by the shore like a moron for hours and hours.

But I gotta figure it out 'cause there's only so many bunnies to snare around here.

Oh man, all these snares are empty.

Might have to move 'em.

The word must have got out that an assassin is on the loose in the area.

Even the moose are sort of onto me.

I'm mad at myself for missing the first one.

That was the big screw-up on my part.

But nature is a brutal place at times.

That's why we're just part of it.

My dad went through so much suffering.

He had diabetes, amputated his leg.

Couple years later, they amputated his other leg.

And then he lost all the feeling in his hands.

But somehow he's always very good at maintaining

like a positive and super encouraging attitude through the whole thing.

He had that joy in him up until his last breath.

So it was a lesson that you couldn't buy

with any amount of money.

Hopefully when the tragedy comes, our imprint on the

world will be enough to say that it was worth it.

Eh, I should go do something more productive.

Could build, you know, like a reindeer fence, kind of

funneling any potential moose to stay near the water.

I'm so desperate for places to hunt things.

It's worth a shot.

This is one of the trails that I don't want them going down.

Otherwise I'll be too far probably to shoot it.

See, when you're chopping these trees down,

you don't want to chop them from both sides so they fall off.

You just want to maybe hit it on this side to weaken

the fibers a bit and then just give it one chop.

Fall it over and it'll hold like that.

We didn't even set this one.

See, you got a little low spot here.

So I'll just stick a stake like that.

And a stake like that.

Pick it up.

Set it like that.

There you go, you're coming down this trail.

There's a moose.

It's like, oh man, trees in the way.

No big lazy moose wants to jump around.

There you go.

That's a start.

I don't want to burn too much energy, but I'll come do more.

Hopefully I get another chance.

I have that giant weight on my shoulder all the time that I'm going to starve.

Well, I couldn't sleep very well

because I was thinking all night about what I should do.

The only thing I can really do is take my snares

that are beginning less productive and move them into better spots.

I think a lot of the snares I have that are out

are probably no longer going to catch anything.

That's cool.

Holy cow.

Moose over there.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The wind is really picking up.

I'm just so exposed right now.

I need to get the hell off of this rock.

[GROANING]

[BLEEP]

[GROANING]

My heart's pumping so fast right now.

Just hit that moose.

Some good bubbly blood on there.

There is something screaming outside.

I'm just going to go.

[BLEEP]